Читать книгу Arcadia - Sir Philip Sidney - Страница 14

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My Dear Lady And Sister,

The Countess Of Pembroke

Most dear—and most worthy to be most dear—lady:

You have here this idle work of mine which, I fear, like the spider’s web will be thought more fit to be swept away than read to any purpose. For my part, in truth, as the cruel fathers among the Greeks would cast out the babes they did not want to foster, I could well find in my heart to cast out in some desert of forgetfulness this child, which I am loathe to claim. But you desired me to write it, and your desire is an absolute commandment to my heart.

Now it is done only for you, only to you. If you keep it to yourself or to such friends who will weigh errors in the balance of good will, I hope it will be pardoned for the father’s sake. Perhaps it will be made much of, though in itself it has some deformities. Indeed, it is not fit for severer eyes, being but a trifle, and that triflingly handled.

Your dear self can best witness how it was written on loose sheets of paper, most of it in your presence, the rest by sheets sent unto you as fast as they were done. In sum, a young head, not so well stayed as I would it were (and shall be when God wills), having many fancies begotten in it, would have grown a monster if it had not been in some way delivered. More sorry might I be that those fancies came in than that they got out.

This work’s chief safety will be not to walk abroad, and its chief protection that it bears the livery of your name—which, if much good will does not deceive me, is worthy to be the sanctuary for a greater offender. This I say because I know your virtue, and this I say, that it may ever be so—or, to say it better, because it will ever be so.

Read it, then, at your idle times, and blame not the follies your good judgment will find in it, but laugh at them. If you look for no better stuff than you would when looking for mirrors or feathers in a haberdasher’s shop, you will continue to love the writer, who loves you exceedingly and prays most heartily that you may long live to be a principal ornament to the family of the Sidneys.